This invention relates to body fluid drainage apparatus, and in particular to a support for suspending a body fluid drainage bag from a structure such as a hospital bed frame.
Flexible collection containers or bags fabricated from plastic films are used in various applications such as the collection of body fluids from hospital patients. These containers, however, are not sufficiently rigid to support themselves in an upright position during collection of body fluids. Moreover, such containers may not be laid flat during collection because of the potential of leakage back through the fluid inlet port, with attendant hazard to the patient. Some bags also provide an accurate volume reading of the fluid collected, but to do so it is necessary that the bag be supported substantially vertically.
For example, during urinary catheterization a patient is connected to a urinary drainage bag formed of flexible plastic film with volume indicia inscribed on an outer face of the bag. In this procedure a continuous indication of the amount of urine expelled from the body is desired, which can be obtained only if the bag is supported vertically.
In instances where the patient is confined to bed, it is desirable to have a hook or some other means for attaching the bag to the bed of the patient. There are, however, at least two different sizes of bed frames, namely 1 1/4 inch and 1 1/2 inch, both of which use angle iron. To maintain the collection bag vertical, it is important that the hook or other attaching device closely fit either size bed frame. In other instances it is desirable to hang the bag from odd-sized frames or at different heights below the level of the patient. Present drainage bag supports do provide a loop of string for this purpose, but such a loop uses more string than is necessary and does not provide for easy variability of the height of the bag.
Various supports for drainage bags have been proposed to address several of the above problems but they can be improved in certain respects or for certain applications. For example, co-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,194,715 to Forman et al. discloses a two-piece drainage bag support. It would, however, be desirable to obtain the functions of the Forman et al. support in a one-piece support since the two-piece construction requires extra molding and assembly. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,312,352 to Meisch et al. shows a one-piece hanger, hook and handle assembly for a urinary drainage bag, which assembly uses a pair of living hinges to permit the hooks and hanger to be molded from one piece. However, in this construction, the load of the drainage bag is applied to the living hinge, which is the thinnest part of the assembly.